February 13, 2016

"While “no” responses increased among gay and straight people of both genders, the change was biggest among gay men and straight women. The number of gay men responding 'yes' declined from 83 percent to 57 percent, while straight women dropped from 48 to 25 percent. What’s more, fewer people now say they’d date someone just for the sex. In 2005, 49 percent of OkCupid users said they would, while last year just 41 percent did. The number of people who said love was more interesting to them than sex at the moment remained unchanged, at 75 percent."

The OKCupid users that were in it for the sex simply moved over to Tinder instead.

Similarly, Henry (upthread) said:

The article fails to mention competing services that have grown in popularity in the last ten years, some of which promote hookups more aggressively. The change must just as likely indicate shifting markets as shifting mores.

17 comments:

Still, to the extent that those 12 million are being honest, the news seems both good and bad. Daters are becoming more careful, but also less judgmental. They’re more open-minded, but also more traditional.

WTF?

Please vote on what this means:

[] It is good that daters are more careful and open-minded but bad that they are less judgmental and more traditional.

[] It is good that daters are more careful and less judgmental but bad that they are more open-minded and more traditional.

[] It is good that daters are more careful and less judgmental and more open-minded and more traditional. It's all good.

A more serious point: The article fails to mention competing services that have grown in popularity in the last ten years, some of which promote hookups more aggressively. The change must just as likely indicate shifting markets as shifting mores.

The far more likely explanation is that what changed from 2005 to 2015 is not "people" in general; what changed is who answers questions on OKCupid. In 2005, OKCupid was just a year old, so it wasn't that well-known, and the graphic design and interface had more of a rough, old-school, indie feel. So the people who were both aware of it, and liked it enough to keep using it, tended to be relatively young, underground types. And they tended to live in big metropolitan areas in the US. Since then, OKCupid has been acquired by Match.com; it's become one of the most popular dating sites; and it's been redesigned to be a lot more slick and user-friendly. So the average OKCupid user is now older, more mainstream, and more geographically diverse (including smaller American towns and also other countries) than in 2005.

OKCupid is great at presenting data about itself in a way that generates a lot of web traffic and free advertising, but it's not always so great at being honest and non-misleading about that data. (This isn't the only example.)

You don't have to have sex on the "first date" to demonstrate the intense passion of instant chemistry, but come on. At least 2nd or 3rd base. Fine, don't go "all the way" - (which can be over-rated anyway), but at least give an indication of how involved your genitals are feeling it, if they are.

You people are so dull and uncreative. There are way kinkier places to go than just intercourse.

I can describe them for you, if you're that far behind on what they are.

The inclusion of 'consider' in the poll question is distorting. Considering and doing are worlds apart. I suppose it was the exact phrasing from the original question. Women and men know long before the first date concludes whether they'd like to screw each other or not.

Don't know if that figure is that accurate. Bought a truck from a guy maybe 5 years ago. He was maybe in his early 50s, or so, and claimed that he was hitting at maybe 90% on Match.com dates. Made me think about breaking off with my current partner, and seeing if my luck was as good. Of course, I didn't, but it was tempting.

But, in my experience, I don't think that you should have sex that early in your relationship if you think that the relationship has a chance to go somewhere. Thinking back, going all the way back to when I was just graduating from college, early sex with a woman has been more a problem than a gift. The problem, at least for me, is that women seem to get emotionally involved with having sex, and that has, on multiple occasions, caused me to get involved with very nice women whom I should have avoided. I have a type (very bright, somewhat high strung, straight As in college), and maybe it is that they don't have that many sexual partners. But, I somehow attract them, we have sex too early, and then I spend the next year untangling.

I think that in so many cases these days, the women are not having early sex because they really need the sex, like men do, but rather, I suspect that it is really on the chance that they might end up in a relationship as a result. Maybe all those years of Sluts in the City TV show got to me. But, most often, it just seems like the women are dissatisfied later. (And, yes, I think that this is a large part of the "rape culture" on college campuses today - but I am mostly talking about older women here).

Heterosexual, transgender/homosexual, transgender/crossover, transgender/bisexual, transgender/polygamous, transgender/etc. There are more divisions in the rainbow spectrum than are recounted by bigots in the congruence movement.

Chiming in with all the others pointing out that in 2005, online dating was a pretty new phenomenon, still in the rapid-evolution phase. Now, it's a more mature market (in the economic sense) with more product differentiation. People go to OKCupid or MAtch.com or jdate or...I dunno I'm old and married...for different reasons than they go to tinder or grindr (I'm too old and married to bother remembering which one is the gay one)--or fetlife.com.

The 2005 sample was probably more cross-sectional of an age group than the OK Cupid sample is. In 1980, you could get relevant data about eating habits at a Shop-Rite. Today, half of your desired sample is at Whole Foods and half is at Walmart.

"While “no” responses increased among gay and straight people of both genders, the change was biggest among gay men and straight women

One likely explanation: people who say "yes" to the sex on the first date question get spammed by creepy guys who are searching for that response to that question.

Dating sites have a big weakness where the most desirable members (ie, the members who are most attractive to guys, who send most of the messages) have the worst user experience. They get lots and lots of low quality messages or outright harassment from people they don't want to date. Straight guys and lesbian girls don't see as much of this, and don't feel the need to camouflage themselves.